More than 10 best practices on patent, transfer and spin-off creation are compiled during the First Arqus Virtual TTOs Exchange

As part of Action Line 5, Entrepreneurial university & Regional engagement, a series of virtual meetings bringing together the different TTOs of the Arqus Alliance are held monthly. The main goal of these collaborative sessions is to strengthen ties between the TTOs of the Alliance and to boost benchmarking between them, in order to learn the best practices implemented in each context.

The first virtual Technology and Transfer Offices (TTOs) exchange took place on 28th October and started with a discussion about “Building awareness: Sharing experiences about raising awareness on patent/transfer/spin-off creation”. After a brief introduction of each participant, different best practices and activities were shared within the group with regards to building awareness in each TTO.

The list of the best practices presented and discussed and that can serve as inspiration for TTOs within and outside the Arqus consortium are presented below:

• Creation of an intranet platform to disseminate information from TTOs to potential inventors and audiences.
• Creation of a complete database to disseminate information to interested audiences.
• Use of social media to announce calls and activities programmed by the TTO.
• Use of training programs and online seminars about patenting and spin-off creation.
• Creation of the profile ‘technological promotors’ as leaders in research groups with the objective of encouraging and boosting technological transfer in their network.
• Use of networking so that new inventors can meet successful inventors.
• Creation of internal groups of inventors to promote collaboration.
• Development of activities to help to identify new patentable technologies.
• Organization of interdisciplinary research – organising coffee meets to boost links between experts from different fields.
• Teaching easy tools and methods to encourage small advances to fulfil more strategic objectives over time.
• Promotion of engagement in activities.
• Invitation of colleagues and key referents in training programs in order to serve as inspiration.
• Development of practical workshops to try writing versions of drafts to be reviewed later by technical staff.
• Use of training sessions to teach how to do market and regulatory research.

The next virtual meeting of Arqus TTOs will take place in November with a focus on conducting a benchmark on each TTO’s structure, resources and activities.